Teaching Common Sense
and I don't mean teaching Thomas Paine's Common Sense I mean teaching out kids common sense, the quality that everyone on the planet needs to survive.
Teaching our Autism Spectrum son common sense is kind of like pulling out all of your teeth and replacing them without Novicane. There are a number of very bad habits he has picked up over the years, and if they were from us it would be easier to manage. Unfortunately, they are not. There have been times when we don't have control over what goes on around him and at those times he picked up things that are not necessarily positive things to do.
One of them is being overtly generous with money we don't have. That one drives us insane. He will make OUTLANDISH offers, just to be nice and not have the money to back it up. He MUST stop doing this as it will only get worse as he gets older, he cannot continue to offer extravagent things and expect people to tolerate him or the offer. It could land him in a pile of trouble. For my husband and I we are disturbed that he expects us to OK a crazy request, but we are still frustrated with his lack of comprehension. He still has NO CLUE that spending all of his money at one time is just a really dumb thing to do. We had another episode of this today on the way to church and having to explain that saying that is really dumb and don't expect it to happen caused a minor panic attack in the back seat of the car. We weren't saying that he was dumb, he isn't, but the idea was not workable for us and that he would need to come up with something better than that or nothing at all.
How do we teach common sense? I had always thought it was ingrained and that it was something that was practically genetic and now here we are having to figure out how to teach this process to our son. If he could stop the constant chattering and really listen (and not have to constantly have the last word) it would help tremendously. Because of his exposure to negative things, I am quite impatient with some of the laws in this state. It seems like the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few (disabled children). Our son has these immense bad habits to unlearn, and still function with the gen's of society. I keep refering back to Penelope Trunk's website, her comments on Aspergers are fascinating and she really is able to describe what is going on and how things are supposed to be. I keep hoping I can get my son to be functional or at least able to get the words out so he can comprehend what is expected of him and what he needs to do. It is hard to keep everything we need to do with him straight....the other is that we are expected to make certain that our son says and does everything like everyone else. He doesn't. There are times when he says a bunch of stuff he doesn't mean, OR he doesn't comprehend what the meaning is supposed to be.
We are working against trememdous odds. His abilities weren't supposed to be where they are now. We are looking at the common sense issue as that, an issue, albeit a large one. This would encompase a huge amount of effort, therapy a nd additional work on our parts. He has a ton of work and a long way to go before he can hold a job, work or keep his head on straight when constantly told "No".
Some days I wonder if we will get him there and other days I know we will.
Teaching our Autism Spectrum son common sense is kind of like pulling out all of your teeth and replacing them without Novicane. There are a number of very bad habits he has picked up over the years, and if they were from us it would be easier to manage. Unfortunately, they are not. There have been times when we don't have control over what goes on around him and at those times he picked up things that are not necessarily positive things to do.
One of them is being overtly generous with money we don't have. That one drives us insane. He will make OUTLANDISH offers, just to be nice and not have the money to back it up. He MUST stop doing this as it will only get worse as he gets older, he cannot continue to offer extravagent things and expect people to tolerate him or the offer. It could land him in a pile of trouble. For my husband and I we are disturbed that he expects us to OK a crazy request, but we are still frustrated with his lack of comprehension. He still has NO CLUE that spending all of his money at one time is just a really dumb thing to do. We had another episode of this today on the way to church and having to explain that saying that is really dumb and don't expect it to happen caused a minor panic attack in the back seat of the car. We weren't saying that he was dumb, he isn't, but the idea was not workable for us and that he would need to come up with something better than that or nothing at all.
How do we teach common sense? I had always thought it was ingrained and that it was something that was practically genetic and now here we are having to figure out how to teach this process to our son. If he could stop the constant chattering and really listen (and not have to constantly have the last word) it would help tremendously. Because of his exposure to negative things, I am quite impatient with some of the laws in this state. It seems like the rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few (disabled children). Our son has these immense bad habits to unlearn, and still function with the gen's of society. I keep refering back to Penelope Trunk's website, her comments on Aspergers are fascinating and she really is able to describe what is going on and how things are supposed to be. I keep hoping I can get my son to be functional or at least able to get the words out so he can comprehend what is expected of him and what he needs to do. It is hard to keep everything we need to do with him straight....the other is that we are expected to make certain that our son says and does everything like everyone else. He doesn't. There are times when he says a bunch of stuff he doesn't mean, OR he doesn't comprehend what the meaning is supposed to be.
We are working against trememdous odds. His abilities weren't supposed to be where they are now. We are looking at the common sense issue as that, an issue, albeit a large one. This would encompase a huge amount of effort, therapy a nd additional work on our parts. He has a ton of work and a long way to go before he can hold a job, work or keep his head on straight when constantly told "No".
Some days I wonder if we will get him there and other days I know we will.
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